Michael Dunlop may have grabbed the superbike-based honours at the Isle of Man TT, but when it came to pure pace at the Ulster Grand Prix, favour swung back Ian Hutchinson’s way. So much so that Hutchy took the outright lap record at the Dundrod track, upping Bruce Anstey’s 2010 lap of 133.977mph to a new high of 134.089mph. Michael Dunlop’s 2016 TT lap was pushing the Ulster’s claim as being the world’s fastest current circuit, but Hutchy’s efforts put a little bit of daylight between the two events.
The superbike train powers its way round the Ulster...
Hutchy was on fire at the Ulster, and only a brilliant Bruce Anstey win in one of the supersport races prevented the Tyco man from a clean sweep of the five races he’d entered. On his record lap, Hutchy said afterwards, “The conditions were far from perfect in that second Superbike race – certainly not as good as they were back in 2010 when the record was originally set. But I saw the green lights on my dash, so I knew I was on a personal best lap, and knew we wouldn’t be far away.”